Why no green power transformer boxes in my neighborhood?

[lgmagone]

I hadn't really thought about it much until today. There are no green power boxes in my neighborhood. I walked around a bit and didn't see any underground vaults, either.

I am assuming that the power company has run high voltage power lines underground to serve our community, and somewhere there must be a transformer to convert these to 240v/120v. I just don't see them.

Any ideas? We are a standard suburb with maybe 300 homes, each on about 1/5th acre lots. Nothing special.

 

[Jraef]

The vaults are there, you just haven’t found them yet. I have UG utilities in my neighborhood, the vault happens to be on my property. With overheads, you may see one pole pig feeding 2-4 houses, the vault on my lot feeds 2 whole blocks of houses. I have a rosemary bush next to it and I basically ignore it other than the drip irrigation, so it tends to grow over the top of the vault lid. Last week they came by in the night and whacked it back again, leaving me a nice little present of a pile of rosemary trimmings in my driveway blocking my car, so I had to go to work smelling like an Italian chef! They only do that about once every 3 years if there is no issue with the transformer, so right before they do it you could easily miss seeing it there.

 

[lgmagone]

The vaults are there, you just haven’t found them yet. I have UG utilities in my neighborhood, the vault happens to be on my property. With overheads, you may see one pole pig feeding 2-4 houses, the vault on my lot feeds 2 whole blocks of houses. I have a rosemary bush next to it and I basically ignore it other than the drip irrigation, so it tends to grow over the top of the vault lid. Last week they came by in the night and whacked it back again, leaving me a nice little present of a pile of rosemary trimmings in my driveway blocking my car, so I had to go to work smelling like an Italian chef! They only do that about once every 3 years if there is no issue with the transformer, so right before they do it you could easily miss seeing it there.

Yup, you're right. I just got back from a walk, and sure enough I found two green boxes. Both were well hidden behind arborvitae and/or other kinds of bushes. I live in the Seattle area so it's not hard to completely hide a green box.